Effect of Feeding Olive Cake in Complete Diet on Performance and Nutrient Utilization of Lambs

A N Owaimer,M S Kraidees,M A Abouheif,S Zahran,M Al-Saiady

doi:10.5713/ajas.2004.491

Abstract

Forty-five Najdi ram lambs were equally and randomly allotted to five dietary groups with three replications per diet to evaluate the effect of feeding olive cake in complete diet on nutrient digestibility, growth performance and carcass characteristics. The diets were: a whole-mixed control diet (C) containing 12% wheat straw and four diets; namely O, ON, OU and OUE, where crude olive cake, 3% NaOH-treated olive cake, 5% urea-treated olive cake (U) and ensiled U, respectively were incorporated to replace the wheat straw of C diet. The results showed that the digestibility of DM, CP, EE and NFE and TDN were higher (p 0.05) in the corresponding values between O, ON and OU diets. The nutrient digestibilities, body weight gain, feed efficiency and Longissimus area were significantly (p<0.05) lower in ON diet as compared to other experimental diets. Average daily DM intake and weight gain were higher (p<0.05) in lambs fed O, OU and OUE diets than those fed C diet. The moisture and protein contents in the soft tissue from ON treatment were lower (p<0.05) than those tissues from C, O, OU and OUE treatments. In conclusion, these results indicated that crude olive cake is a better substitute of wheat straw when fed to growing lambs. (Asian-Aust. J. Anim. Sci. 2004. Vol 17, No. 4 : 491-496)

Highlights

To mitigate the shortage of feeds and fodders and to make animal production profitable, efforts have been made on improvements and utilization of agro-industrial products and non-conventional feeds
The proximate composition data would indicate that nutrient contents of sun-dry olive cake (OC) are comparable to that of wheat straw (Li et al, 2002), which is a commonly used fodder in
Applied on olive cake was retained on it and that probably was due to the lack of urease needed to convert urea to ammonia during the ensiling process

Summary

Introduction

To mitigate the shortage of feeds and fodders and to make animal production profitable, efforts have been made on improvements and utilization of agro-industrial products and non-conventional feeds. These results indicated that crude olive cake is a better substitute of wheat straw when fed to growing lambs. Cake treated by various methods as a substitution for wheat straw in complete diet on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, nitrogen balance and carcass characteristics.

Results

Conclusion